Reign of Ota

Generation 7. Pokemon Sun and Moon. Enormous potential for light and darkness mythology, some hopeful looking new starter Pokemon and a very interesting new region that seems to focus on water (Insert too much water joke), possibly suggesting some form of marine transportation to get around the region? Excited? I sure am.

And yet with my excitement there looms over my shoulder a massive shadow of dread, apprehension and anxiety towards this new introduction of 100 or so new Pokemon, making the inevitable goal of catching them all even harder. But it’s a little…difficult to explain.
(Credit: Pokemondb.net)
I’ll be excited whenever a new Pokemon game comes out. It means a new experience; a new adventure and opportunity to express your individuality by selecting a team unique to you. The same situation applied for the release of Pokemon X and Y. I bought X and Y much like I bought the others, eagerly removing the wrapping, dribbled over the new legendary mascots, inserted the cartridge…
And quite frankly, from the start, I began to feel a slowly approaching sense of being thoroughly underwhelmed.
I didn’t like X and Y. I think that they’re the worst games in the main Pokemon series to date. Not by much, mind you, there were features that redeemed it massively and I’ll mention them later, but on the whole I left the Kalos region with an almost bitter air and began to worry about the highly anticipated Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, because they were going to be made in the same era as these disappointments.

And yet, to my delighted surprise, I found Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire to be an absolutely joyous experience that I will happily return to. So clearly, it wasn’t gen 6 that was the problem. It was Pokemon Y itself. I am no genwunner, as the term is called. Sucker for nostalgia though I may be, I always look at the new Pokemon games with eagerness. In fact, one of the most hated generations, generation 5, is my second favourite generation. I love Pokemon Black. I thought it was great. I still do. So evidently it wasn’t that I was an old fashioned old fart (Though I do fit that description to perfection, as my partner will vouch) and was clinging to my older generation’s glories, and I came to the same conclusion. I just didn’t like Pokemon Y. And this was sad, because I really wanted to.
(Credit: [email protected])
I’m going to try and explain why I didn’t like Pokemon Y, and please don’t be furious if you completely disagree with me, I can see just as easily why you would. It does have it’s good points to me as well as bad points.

As an amateur fiction writer, I’ve always paid particular attention to the stories of these Pokemon games, something that I’ve noted has increased in success from every single Generation right up until Pokemon X and Y, then made a huge comeback in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. And this is where I feel X and Y let me down the heaviest. Is anyone really, truly aware of what Lysandre was trying to do, exactly? Yes, he wanted to revert the Kalos region back to its original, pure state, built only for Pokemon, and that story about the ancient King of Kalos wiping out most of the life in Kalos 3000 years ago was kind of interesting, but in Pokemon Y, his “oh so noble goal” of returning Kalos to a thing of beauty by wiping out all life…it just confused me. A man claims that battling over the Mega Ring was an example of humanity at it’s most selfish, yet not only uses a Mega Ring, but refuses to use his supposedly vast connections to provide his minions with similar Mega Rings and thinks that killing everyone so that everything can be all pretty again isn’t at least kind of selfish? I’ll take the misanthropy, that always makes a good villain, but backwards logic? Sure, some of the other villains in the past, like Maxie and Archie, may have similar backwards logic, but the whole point was that their attempts were almost comedic, whereas I think they really were trying to make us think with Lysandre. Well I’m sorry, but it didn’t. He just sounded like a Politician. And if he’s so obsessed with beauty, why all those RIDICULOUS cybernetic enhancements? I mean, really, Lysandre? I didn’t take you seriously before, but now you’ve just thrown all your ideals out the window with your “oh so terrible and ugly productions of humanity”.
(Credit: villainswikia.com)
And I’m sorry to tread on the attempted Lion King’s mane further, but did anyone for a minute take him seriously? All I saw in Lysandre was a sad little man trying to be vaguely intimidating, and it just didn’t work. He came off more as a whiny, inflated side character. And we know that Pokemon can make something more intimidating. Remember Ghetsis, anyone? He was freaking terrifying!
Mind you, in X and Y’s defence, after making such a disappointing villain, they then proceeded to perform something shocking for Pokemon and not only effective for the story, but effective for my liking of this game as well.
They killed him off. A Pokemon game killed off their own villain. Damn, was that surprising!

What next about my disappointment with X and Y? Well I’ve just decided, after remembering that Nintendo did the shock event of actually killing off a villain, this is my absolute worst part of the story.
THOSE DAMN “FRIENDS”.
(Credit: carlysmithwriting.blogspot.com)
What a bunch of useless, irredeemable, hanging onto my coattails, stupid, boring, uninspired and worthless rag-tag bundle of douches I have ever come across. I gave them a chance. I endured their attempted friendliness. But when you’re as forgettable and as annoying as this prize winning group of morons you really didn’t have a chance. All of these characters who were seemingly important to your journey were so colossally dull and uninteresting that every time one of them randomly appeared halfway along a road and demanded I interact with them I rolled my eyes as I accepted my fate. I know that this is Pokemon, and I wasn’t expecting some lavishly fleshed out back story or complicated relationship, but some development would have been appreciated. Instead, I get these arseholes, who are under the delusion that their little “quirks” are more important than my intended task of becoming the Champion. What’s that, Tierno? You want to make a dance team? Wow, that would be almost interesting were it not for the fact that with every word that spilled out of your mouth the A button was hammered down so that I could talk to someone who grabbed my attention more and that your speech was so uninspired that until you called me that nickname you practically held a gun to my head until I made up I thought that you were a generic NPC. Trevor? You’re on a mission to complete the Pokedex? Well so is everyone else in this world, so trying to emphasise that on you just makes you even more unimportant and dull. Shauna? You’re hinting at a suggested romantic interest by having us look at the sky together? Unfortunately, Serena’s constant brushing me off as a mere friend as well as her hilariously psychotic memes on the internet has convinced me that she is my romantic interest, not you, so you henceforth become unimportant. But hey, I’ll happily take that unevolved starter of yours.
(Credit: pokemondb.net)
What makes Tierno, Trevor and Shauna so tragically dull and uninteres
ting is that in Generation 5, I feel that Pokemon had finally cracked the very same problem. Bianca and Cheren had interesting character development, their characters themselves were sufficiently bearable enough for me to pay attention to them, and genuinely feel some emotional sympathy for Bianca, and actually feel happy for Cheren when he managed to defeat the Elite Four, something that while he may not have shown it, undoubtedly made him very happy. What’s more, they did it again in Black and White 2. Hugh may have been a little hotheaded and snappy, but it was these faults that made him seem like so much more of a person than a simple tag along like these bozos. You wanted to find that Purrloin, because you had a hope that when you did, he could relax more. Is this the crux of the matter? Bianca was struggling to find what to do with herself when she grew up, and let me tell you, that little snippet was hammering the reality home for so many of us Pokemon veterans as we began to be forced to put down our consoles and pick up jobs. Cheren was trying to become friendlier and make it easier for people to talk to him, as well as struggling with his own self confidence, which suggests that he was overcoming anxiety on his part, and that’s something I really admired about him. And Hugh was trying to make his sister happy again as well as boost his own self esteem, but in the process needed to learn compassion for others and their own choices. I mean, damn! These character dispositions may not be Dragon Age level exposition, but for a Pokemon Game, they’re incredible! It’s one of the many reasons I think Generation 5 was one of the best, and why I was so bitterly disappointed when in Generation 6, I was presented with these boring, bland wastes of space.
Oh, but I haven’t gotten to the worst part about them yet. Anyone remember that festival?
What the hell did they do to earn a position on this pedestal? Save the world? All they did was run around after me trying to be something they could never aspire to be. Main characters. And now that I’ve done all the work, they think they can stand beside me, and claim they’re heroes of Kalos? My Tyrantrum has something to say to that, thank you very much!
(Credit: Blueprintreview.co.uk)
I’ve got other problems too, and not about the story. One of them being the incomparable ease of the game. Pokemon Games are not famed for their difficulty, and they are, technically, aimed at young children, so they’re not going to be vastly challenging, but X and Y went way, way, way too far. In my playthrough, I selected a team not based on power, but what I thought was cool, as always. Also, because it was available, I used a Dunsparce, for a laugh. Would you believe me, dear readers, that throughout the whole of Kalos, not one of my Pokemon fainted ever? It was uncanny. At no point, not even at the league, did I feel challenged in the slightest. Sure, with a huge Dragon and Rock (Cool typing, by the way) with enormous attack power, I wasn’t expecting to be slaughtered, but Dunsparce taking on the best of the best and not suffering a scratch? Was I really expecting that?
Well actually, as it turned out, Dunsparce turned into a terrifying god of destruction that could split the earth with Earthquake, continue its assault on the lesser beings with Roost and be blessed by the almighty divines to suffer not the ailments of the common folk with serene grace, but that’s beside the point. This game was bizarrely easy. My partner, brother and fellow society members felt the same.

Surely the Pokemon themselves could redeem this game? Even if the story wasn’t great and mysteriously easy, couldn’t the Pokemon save it?
Yes…and no.
Ninja Frogs, Dinosaurs, psychopathic Espurrs, Howitzer wielding Crayfish and Cthulhu. Generation 6 brought along some fantastic new Pokemon, and with Espurr, a whole load of memes. But what needs to be addressed was that Generation 6 was meant to sell us a whole new type of Pokemon. The Dragon Slayers. The Fairy types. We were supposed to go wild for these new Pokemon and try them out against the all powerful dragons. And were we impressed? Really?  
Who in their right mind looks at a Slurpuff and thinks “Hmm, I could go for a sea pollution Dragon or a bat dragon, both of which have really interesting designs, but no, I’ll go for an obese meringue.” I’m willing to bet my beard on you immediately looking at the most prospective choices like Dragale or Noivern. Or you could go for Aromatisse, which looks like it went for an audition as a cabaret girl, failed, and now tries to dance unsuccessfully in various dingy places around Lumiose city. Am I painting a good picture of these Fairy types here?
But there are good ones, right? Of course! There’s Sylveon, which everyone loves, Xerneas, which looks amazing, and uh…wait…am I right in saying that every other Fairy type people want to use is from other generations?
Togekiss, Clefable, Gardevoir, Mega Altaria, these are all good Pokemon, and they’re the ones everyone wants because they’re more powerful as these Fairy types. But no one wants the new ones, do they? So can the Fairy types really be regarded as a success? We just want what came before, given a makeover.

But what’s good about X and Y? Oh, tons! First and foremost, character customisation. HELL YES. Something everyone wanted to do was put a bit of “them” into their trainers. Ruby, Gold, Dawn and all those other trainers had really cool initial designs, but being able to make our trainers fit styles we like? That’s awesome!
The roller skates were a really cool little bit too. I used those far more than my bike, in fact. Sure, they may have been trying to sell it a bit too heavily with the character of Korrina, but they were really fun! Besides, who doesn’t look at people as they roller skate by and feel a twinge of envy? Maybe we can’t do it in reality, but in Kalos, we’re the next big thing. You can even grind down pipes. That just makes me feel unnecessarily cool. Am I going to go out of my way to get up that hill again just because I didn’t see the pipe first time? You can bet your badges I am.
There were also some new styles of battle included into Generation 6, though these…confused me, at times. Especially the sky battles.
Everyone knows that Scyther can’t learn fly. We look at those wings spread to take to the skies and feel very sorry for it. We also feel very amused at the enormous Golurk taking off into the skies like the Iron Giant. I’d like nothing better than my automaton to smash your pitiful bird into the ground, but because you apparently can’t see the huge bursts of flame coming out of him, giving him flight, you’ll refuse to battle me, mister Sky trainer. On the other hand, my Scyther, whose wings can barely lift itself, let alone myself as well as Scyther, can flit around the clouds as happily as if it were a bird Pokemon all along. Wait, you’ve got a Yanmega? Sure, bring him along too! But leave your Flygon behind. Geez. Only FLYING Pokemon fight in the sky, dumbass.
Also, we’ve got Mega evolutions! Yeah, I know everyone was kind of sceptical about it at first, and yes, fingers were pointed heavily at Digimon, but who cares? Have a Mega Charizard X, buddy! So what if Mega Sableye looks ridiculous? Feast your eyes on the awesomeness that is Mega Banette!
What’s more, combine epic designs for the mascot legendaries with life and death symbolism, and you’re onto a bestseller there, Nintendo.
And finally, the looks of the game. My goodness me did they step up their game when it came to making things look pretty. The shift from Generation 5 to 6 was enormous, and while unnerving at first, it paid off because things feel so much more immersive. I was constantly taking pictures of myself to document my journey through Kalos. Can you imagine if they did things of that level for HeartGold and Soulsilver, with all your Pokemon behind you? The internet would explode!
(Credit: Serebii.net)
So to sum it all up, there was a lot of good stuff about Pokemon X and Y, but I feel that in terms of an immersive game, something that wants to draw the player in by having a story and characters they feel passionately about, as well as including some exciting new Pokemon that we should feel proud of when they win with effort, X and Y simply didn’t make the cut. I have a personal theory that X and Y was an experiment; that the games were released simply as a test to see how well Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire would fare under the same engine, and whether or not they’d have to postpone it until generation 7. Hey, I’m glad they didn’t, but still…

So Generation 7. Pokemon Sun and Moon. Enormous potential for light and darkness mythology, some hopeful looking new starter Pokemon and a very interesting new region that seems to focus on water (Insert too much water joke), possibly suggesting some form of marine transportation to get around the region? Excited? I sure am. But at the same time, I’m worried, too.

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